Transform 2014: CIOs will lose control to the CMO as Internet of Things and big data explode

The Internet of Things and the increasing number of web-integrated devices that comes with it will eventually see control of enterprise technology - particularly big data and analytical tools - shift away from the CIO and towards the chief marketing officer of the organisation.

That's according to Tibco Software chief technology officer Matt Quinn, who made the comments during his keynote address at the US software provider's event in Paris as part of its Transform 2014 European tour.

Quinn described the Internet of Things as "really giving rise to what I look at as integration 3.0," with the Tibco CTO likening "generation 1.0" integration to soldering PC boards together and hard-coding-in to connect systems.

"Generation 2.0" of integration, Quinn said, consisted of open systems, with multi-tiered architectures enabling organisations to integrate systems, not by coding, but through "software by design", and other processes controlled by the IT department.

"The majority of work that went on in integration 2.0 was connecting ERP systems to CRM, big corporate systems. Often these systems were owned and maintained by the CIO in the IT departments of many of your companies," he told the audience.

However, with the rise of the Internet of Things, the Tibco CTO believes a new form of integration - and the nature of the data that surrounds it - will see a shift in control away from the IT department towards marketing.

"In integration 3.0, we're seeing this rapid shift from the CIO owning everything to do with technology, towards the line of business to the chief marketing officer. We've seen this massive rise in software-as-a-service where you don't even own the data centre, you don't own the application, you don't even own the data in some case," said Quinn.

The argument behind this line of thinking is that marketing is equipped to analyse the data in a way that benefits the commercial goals of an organisation more than IT is able to.

"So SaaS applications have really kicked off Integration 3.0, where it's not just about connectivity and providing integration, it's about understanding all the events," Quinn continued, arguing that understanding customers, their habits and desires is something that needs to be done at lightning speed in order to achieve the best results.

"And one of the critical aspects of integration 3.0 is the ability to harness the Internet of Things, where you have vastly more information available to you, so being able to analyse quickly and understand what's going on and the ability to take action at the moment of interaction becomes the most important aspect of modern architecture," he said.

Quinn added that in order for an organisation to thrive in such a world, data needs to be analysed quickly and those in marketing are most clued-up on the needs of customers who are going to aid a business in moving ahead of the opposition.

"Many think the Internet of Things is going to become a two trillion dollar market," he said.

"And if you look at all the devices, all the systems that are out there, all the information that is being collected, the ability to harness all that information is going to become the competitive differentiator for many of you in the audience today," Quinn concluded.

Microsoft has made an early version of Windows 10 - its next operating system - available for download. The OS promises better integration and harmonisation across platforms, including mobile and desktop.
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